Wherever you go, there you are

Writing to you THIS time not from Thailand, but from Laos! Border crossing #1 was a success. It only took 4 hours! Well, ok maybe 2 and a half. but from one country, to 'in transit' in the other it was about 4 hours :) No matter! We had a lovely couple of days floating down the Mekong to Luang Prabang in Laos, yesterday a little chilly but today SUNNY and warm! Taking a step back, our last day in Pai, we got up the courage to rent some motorbikes and jet around to see some waterfalls, a bizarre Chinese village (more like a theme park) and some 'Wats". Soo fun to scoot around but a little challenging on the other side of the road! Handing back our bikes, we (reluctantly) waved goodbye to Pai and caught an evening bus to Chiang Khong, the Thai town on the Thai-Laos border. Arriving at 33am, we were taken to our 'complimentary' room for the remainder of the evening. Plans to shower were quickly dismissed as we discovered our sink full of creatures and an ant farm in the bathroom. Slept like no tomorrow, and woke up to find Sarah not there. All her things (shoes, money, sleeping stuff) was there, so I thought she might have just stepped out. 20 minutes later, still no sign, so I got my shoes on and went to look for her. Didn't have to look very far; she was sleeping on a bench with a quilt right outside the room, because it smelt too much like sewer. Not even kidding (this place was a winner but hey it was 'free'). The morning consisted of bussing to breakfast, booking our 'slow boat', bussing to leave the Thai border, taking a ferry across a river, waiting around 1 hour to get Laos VISAs (gong show), getting a tuk-tuk to a convenience store to buy snacks for the trip, then finally borading our boat! We left Huay Xai (may be wrong) at around 1230 and sailed the day away, arriving at our halfway point, Pak Beng, at around 6pm. Sarah and I jumped to the back, grabbed our bags, ran off the boat, scaled a small mud mountain, and booked it to a hostel to get a room, as we hadn't booked ahead. Luckily we got a cheap (300 baht) room... some of the slower ones were stuck with 700 baht. Noo thanks! After a dinner and early bedtime, we headed to bed. Wake up call this morning at 7am for breakfast, take away lunch (baguette sandwiches) and we were off again! Today was so nice, sunny all day, got quite toasty! Arrived here in Luang Prabang at around 6pm, same routine as yesterday (booking it off the boat), and we wandered a bit, finding a great place! Water, coffee , tea, free wifi, BALCONY. Jackpot. Off to bed after this post - booking activities tomorrow!!! Until next time...

I go' i' fo free

Sa wat dii ka (no idea if that's how it is spelt) from Pai!! Northern Thailand is where we are, in this little town of about 3900 people (according to lonely planet) and it is SO nice. Almost all the guest houses are little bungalows with their own sitting areas out front, there are countless shops and restaurants, and there are waterfalls and caves all around the town - endless exploration! If you ever come to Thailand you MUST come here. As a side note, about 80% of the people do have dreadlocks, Just that kinda place haha. Our hostel is about a five minute walk from the main part of town and is lovely and quiet, complete with hammocks on the porch! Definitely the nicest place we have stayed, we both have our OWN queen size beds (by accident) and we are paying roughly $8 per night. I'll update photos soon, I am in town at an internet cafe but did not bring my camera cord so it will have to be next time! But let's UPDATE. It has been too long since my last pos and I have so much to fill you in on! Let's take a ew steps back to where we left off - Sukothai. We took a 6 hour bus to Chiang Mai on the 8 of January - bus was comfy enough but they packed it full so people were standing in the aisles (luckily we got seats). We arrived in sunny Chiang Mai at about 3pm and got a 'taxi/bus' thing that is essentially seates mounted in the back of a pickup truck. Our hostel, called Dive Guest House, was FANTASTIC. The woman who worked at the front was sooo helpful and great - we booked everything we did through her, by simply mentioning we were interested in doing something. Next thing you know, boom, here are your tickets, they are picking you up out front at this time, the BEST. Made it so easy. Our first day happened to be a day where the town shuts off a seet for a market, called the 'walking street'. It ran till 11pm, so we put down our bags, and hit it up!! Amazing stuff, got some thai flappy pants, they are the best: nice and cool in the day, wam at night and protect against mosquitos! After 4 hours, chocolate banana belgian waffles, cheap delicious dinner, one foot massage (sarah) and a few purchases later, we headed back for an early night. The next morning, we walked around the town and checked out he 3 main temples (recommended by the hostel lady), grabbed some fruit shakes (mandarin orange - BEST) and grabbed some lunch. At 430 we were collected from our place for a COOKING COURSE!!!! So exciting!!! We got a tour of the local market and learnt about different rice, noodles, and curries; after which we had a tour of the cooking school's little garden filled with ingredients! So many herbs and mushrooms! We chose 3 dishes to cook each - one curry, one sitr-fry, and one soup. I made khao soi curry (teh local narthern curry made of red curry, yellow curry powder and coconut milk DELICIOUS) cashew chicken (of course) amd a tom yum soup! Which was so spicy my mouh was on FIRE. Haha. Sarah made a panang curry (peanut curry - SO GOOD. favourite), pad thai - classic, and a coconut cream soup. Everything was SO good. the food here is amazing. Nothing too bizare yet, have seen some crispy bugs on sticks at the market buuut probably will stay away from those :) The day after our cooking course was our TREKKING DAY!!! It all began at 830 am with a pick-up from our guide in a pickup truck bus - first stop was an orchid farm! So many cool flowers, took tons of photos, they definitely look different from home! Activity number 2 was ELEPHANT riding!! The elephants were so cute. I saw a baby and thought to myself 'aah that's not so big it'll be fine', then the adult one appeared and they are GIANT. As in climb up a platform to get onto their backs. They are so cute though. Felt bad for the guy the whole time, he just wanted some bananas. At the end of our elephant stint we got to chill with them for about 3 minues before they were off again. After elephants, we drove a little ways to the start of the path that would lead us up to a waterfall!! We walked about 30 minutes up beside the river to a little village where we were served lunch - delicious pad thai eaten out of banana leaves with pineapple for dessert. So much pineapple. Love it. Moving along the river again we arrived at the waterfall after abother half hour. Very cool - had bathing suits but decided to hold out till white water rafting! The raft we had was a patchwork of repaired holes... there was definitely a bubble happening under on of my feet but hey it survived. I can tell you why there were so many holes - never gone OVER so many rocks ahahah. Like hey there's a small boulder up ahead - let's hit it/get stuck on it/slide over it. Hilarious. Went over a few few pretty good rapids, got pretty soaked. After the white water area of the river, we transfered to a bamboo raft. So cool and peaceful. At our landing spot, we piled back into the pickup truck to head back to Chiang Mai. Great day!! BUT THE BEST PART (and what the title of this post is referring to) is the FREE MASSAGE we got for booking 2 things through our hostel! We opted for the Thai massage (1 hour) and it was sooo good. The best thing. Need to get another ASAP - or foot massage. And it was FREE. We were so pumped on that!! Afterward we went for dinner, probably delicious because it always is, and headed back to the guest house, out front of which a 'cocktail car' was parked - and so our night began. We met a few people from our gues house and went over for a bit, then decided to HIT THE TOWN. Ended up going to a place called THC, perfect, which was very cool - essentailly a rooftop bar where everyone was sitting on straw mats amongst low tables and hanging out - popular spot for dreadlocks too. After we'd had enough of the rooftop, we sought out a pool table and played a few games, then called it a night. The next day we slept in, got some photos for our Laos visa, paid our hostel dues, put some more credit on my phone, wrote some journal entries etc - had a housekeeping day. The intention was for a blog post to happen but the computer at our place wasn't working sooo that was postponed. Caught a bus at 530 up to Pai (last night) and here we are! The bus ride was preeety windy and at times definitely thought we might tip over but we made it! One girl read the entire way - kinda made me want to throw up just watching her (sorry about that) because it was SOOO windy - I could NEVER read!! Arrived in Pai around 91 and after wandering around for a while we were picked up on motorbike from the woman that runs the guest house we are now in. Veeerry nice place! Met some co-guest housers and ended up coming into town to check out some nightlife. Ended up staying pretty late and therefore slept late today. Walked around town, bought our tickets for the slow boat to Laos, got some snacks, and are gonna rent some motorbikes (NOT - scooters) tomorrow to see the sights! Time now for some dinner I think - might go for the panang :) Kudos to you if you made it through his post in one sitting - sorry for the delay!! Will be on it next time so you don't have to read such an essay :) Miss you all and hope everyone is doing well!!! SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE (Laos)!!! If you're up for some more rading, check out Sarah's blog too!: www.toastsandwiches.tumblr.com

Some photos!!! Sukothai

Sarah on the bike!!

Giant Buddha

Giant standing Buddha

From one the the island-ish ruins

Elephants 'holding up' a chedi

Some photos!!! Bangkok

Wat Arun as the Sun was going down!

Khao San Road - tourist time

Police Mantra?

Carved Elephant Tusks

Wat Arun + Monk

Venturing North

And I am back!! Our last day in Bangkok we walked around Th Khao San, which is the main tourist strip, visited the Tourism Authority of Thailand to book some things, and visited some museums and temples. One in particular was so cool, it was called Wat Arun or 'Temple of Dawn' and it had little colourful pieces of ceramic incorporated in the whole structure. Also monks being everywhere make the temple visits feel more authentic :) We are not in Bangkok anymore (which is a relief - waay too busy for my liking!). We have begun our trek to Northern Thailand, having stopped in a town called Sukothai for 2 days/nights. It is about halfway between Bangkok and our next stop, Chiang Mai, so it was a great stop place! We bussed here yesterday on a lovely air-conditioned bus (on which we were the only non-Thai people) which included a 20-minute food stop on the side on the highway which we used our 'meal cards' included with the bus tickets! Pretty luxury for here. Got here around 230 yesterday and walked around the town, had some dinner and tucked in early. Woke up today and took a 'bus' )more like a pickup truck with two wooden bench rows as seats along the side)to the Old Sukothai, which is where the Historical Park is! Met a very nice Dutch girl who was traveling by herself; we rented some bikes to get around (ALSO to create a much needed breeze..holy) and biked around the ruins!!! Very cool to see, they were super crumbly in spots where they weren't reinforced, but that's ok because those are the REAL 'ruins'. Apparently Sukothai was one of the first 'kingdoms' (?) in Thailand so that was very cool to see! Sooo many Buddhas. I need to figure out what the different Buddha hand positions mean. After our very warm day biking around the historical site, we sought out a local pool to hit up - BEST THING EVER. Except it was the local pool so all the children a the pool were waaay more interested in us 'farang' (foreigners) than in swimming. Swimming and book-reading was exactly what the doctor ordered though. Yay for preventing heat stroke! Tonight is our last night here, tomorrow on to Chiang Mai!! We are planning to possibly do an overnight 'trek' there which includes hiking, elephant riding, and staying in a hillside tribe's village! Also a possibility to avoid supporting the use of elephants so much in the tourist industry is to visit a rescued tour elephant park and to help clean / feed the animals. Maybe both. Conflict of interest?? Here in Sukothai it is LOVELY weather wise, well let's be honest I am still melting during the day, but it is not so humid so it actually cools off at night! It is supposed to cool off even more as we go North, which I fully support. Our guest house does have pillows that weigh 18 pounds and feel like bricks though so maybe we'll avoid that next time? Keep you posted, as always!!!!

Continued...

OK sorry I thought I was a faster typer than that. Ahaha. Did not even have time to log out so I had to get 15 more mins. Ohhh well. Anyways after much-needed nap, we headed across the street for dinner and then came back to our hotel to use the internet / try to get ahold of Sarah's friends brother to whom which we are delivering baby clothes for a 2 week old tiny one! Plan for this evening is to ATTEMPT to stay up till 10 so we can wake up at a normal time. Probably plan tonight some more but looking like we are heading North probably Jan 6 or 7 toward Chiang Mai, stopping in a town about halfway between here and there (starts with an S... cannot remember what it is called). Will keep you posted as plans evolve!!! Hope everyone is well and I'll try to update soon :)

Touchdown

We have arrived!!!! It is just as hot and humid and happening as I'd expected it to be. OK maybe a little hotter. Like I could do hot yoga anywhere. We arrived in Bangkok at noon here time (about 10pm on Jan 3 Calgary time) after 24 hours of travel and 17 hours of flying. We got a cab into town and almost T-boned someone right in front of our hotel, luckily with no seatbelts. We checked in to our hotel and put our bags down / brushed my teeth 3 times, then we headed out for a walk around. NOT real. It looks like a postcard. We are literally in the middle of a market and of course I eyed some goods today but didn't buy anything like SLOW down it has been 3 hours so far I need to pace myself. Went back to the room to plan / ended up having a GIANT nap which was THE best! AAH time is up gotta run!! more later!!